If you were not what I know you to be,
(my knight) whose tower of control baffles me,
outside whose bolted and defended gates,
wide-eyed but dumb, my wistful spirit waits,
as a mourner waits by a rock-sealed tomb
for one who comes not, nor can ever come;
if you did not as you do – if you came
sallied out only a little, to claim
what you know is yours – then it would be I,
(as I know that you know) who’d fortify
perforce my dwelling, dart sternness as you,
fight as now I have no need to do.
Were your love other than it is, and my
love other, they would either force or fly
the deadlock and, so doing, each would kill
the other, that now from firm walls of will
look friendly, calmly, unafraid to face
even each other, from that high, safe place.
Clod & Pebble 